Unboxing: 10ZiG 5848qdv / 4448qv, PCoIP and Blast zero client, a first impression

I got my hands on two 10ZiG devices. I was talking to some of the guys at 10ZiG. They asked me if I was interested to take a look at these devices. As a blogger and an IT guys
I always am interested. I was already looking for a good Blast client because of VMware investing less and less in PCoIP. Customers are asking for good alternatives of Zero Clients as they experience performance issues with VMware PCoIP. So long story short, 10ZiG offers Blast & PCoIP clients and here you will read how to set them up. They also offer Citrix clients but that would be another blog. In the light of the Blast discussion I wanted to see what they got to offer.

My Setup

My setup is simple, I connected a WiFi router in wireless mode with my wireless network. That router was used to connect the Thin clients to the Internet. One 27″ monitor is used to show it all. My home environment has no fixed cable so I had to setup the router in wireless mode. I connect the clients with our internal demo network or customer networks where I know they allow me to connect.

10ZiG Entry level versus performance model, the specs

I’ve been given the opportunity to test two devices, one being an entry model and one a performance model. The Entry model is designed to work for Task or Business users  whereas the performance model is designed for knowledge workers or power users. Both support PCoIP with software encoding and Blast with hardware encoding. To benefit the hardware encoding you would need a GPU that support H.264 of course. The NVIDIA M series is the only one so far to offer this, the K series will work with Blast but don’t support the H.264 encoding. I tested two models the 4448qv and the 5848qdv, the D in the model is because of the Dual Display port offering.

The Specs for the devices are;

Resolution

• 4448 : 1920 x 1200
• 5848: 2560 x 1600

Dual Screen

• 4448 : Yes
• 5848 : Yes

Memory

• 4448 : 2GB, max 8GB
• 5848 : 2GB

Processor

• 4448 : Dual Core 1.33 GHz
• 5848 : Intel Quad Core 2.0 GHz

Graphics

• 4448 :
• 5848 : Intel HD Grpahics

Connections

• 4448 : USB Ports: 2.0 x 2, USB 3.0 x 1, Mic-In x 1, Line-Out x 1, RJ-45 LAN 10/100/1000 Base-T, DC Jack x 1, Video 1920 x 1200, DVI-D x 1, DVI-I x1 VGA Supported with Included Adapter), Optional : (802.11 a/b/g/n Internal Wireless)
• 5848 : USB Ports: 2.0 x 6, USB 3.0 x 2, Mic-In x 1, Line-Out x 1, RJ-45 LAN 10/100/1000 Base-T, DC Jack x 1, Video 1920 x 1200, DVI-D x 1, DVI-I x 1 (VGA Supported with Included Adapter) (2560 x 1600, DP x 2). Optional : (802.11 a/b/g/n Internal Wireless)

Use cases:

• 4448 : Task worker
• 5848: Power users, knowledge workers, 3D, CAD

Setup

I setup both devices and they work similar, setup is a breeze and guiding you through it is more a walk through. You can’t fail setting up these devices. later on I’ll show you how to update them with the manager but first the manual setup like you just unboxed them and are anxious to start.

Initial setup

language and keyboard

The initial setup starts with a language selection, If you select your country but you have a US-layout keyboard you will need to change that later on.
I chose The Netherlands as that is where I’m stationed. The keyboard changed to Dutch but I don’t think people use that keyboard, we use the US one here. So my initial typing of URLs was a bit weird finding the “-” which is different between keyboards.

Date time and you’re done

Next up you set the time and date of the device, both devices I tested where a bit off so check it out. and with that you’re done, that’s all folks how easy can it be. The last thing to enter is the address you want to connect to. There are several option there to fill in but if you are in a hurry you could enter the address and start working.

Shutdown or reboot?

At the options you can specify what is to happen at logoff, You have the option to shutdown or reboot. In the past I used to write scripts (one other vendor used my script for years over here) to logoff the client when the user was finished. That client didn’t have this option, so that’s a good thing. In a flex-environment you want to have a clean Thin client after someone sits at a desk.

Imprivata OneSign

10ZiG  has a good integration with Imprivata Onesign so you can  securely logon and you don’t need to rely on a password only. You have the ability to enter the text that will explain to the users what to enter, of course normally you would do this from the manager. A client needs to have integration like this, clients can and will be used at home as well these days and a external access is two factor authentication protected.

Protocol tuning

A few other things to mention is that you can select the default protocol but can also configure that per resource afterwards.  Several options are available at this part;

• Preferred protocol : PCoIP, Blast or RDP
• Sound redirection
• RDP Experience, LAN, WAN, Modem
• SSL warning, the check for Connection server certificates
• Ctrl-Alt-Del, forwarding the command to the desktop to lock and unlock it
• Menu bar, whether or not you want a menu bar to be visible when the desktop is launched.

And so much more, setting up is easy and within minutes you’re up and running. connected to our demo environment opened a desktop, this was Windows 7 I just noticed and we’re off. 

Other settings

Once you set it all up you will be able to change settings. The control panel, which you can also hide for users, shows options like certificates, VNC services and so on. Let’s walk through them quickly. Of course many settings would be pushed down instead of configured manually.

• Smart Card Utility; The Smart card utility is when you want to use a card reader of some sort.
• Security settings is where you can control what users can do with the system, this could well be a locked down terminal in a public hall.
• VNC service is when you want remote control over the device, you set it up here.
• Cloud manager is where you connect to a cloud manager to receive updates and so on. I will cover that after a short holiday, ain’t got time to do all right now.
• System information gives you info on the memory usage, performance and the packages installed.

The rest is pretty straight forward, good control panel, nothing fancy just does what it needs to do. That’s my kind of system, leave the bla bla out and do you job.

Conclusion

I did some testing and from my first impression they seem very interesting. The reason for this blog as mentioned before was the discussion about VMware PCoIP and Zero clients where VMware seems to be behind on updating PCoIP and prefers to expand the Blast offering. customers are looking for easy to manage, cloud management, good performing clients that support PCoIP, Blast and perhaps RDP. These clients do that and depending on your worker type they got several models to help you out.

The last lines read like I’m working at sales but trust me I’m not.. just a IT guy looking for solutions for customers and 10ZiG was so kind to offer me some clients to investigate. I got customers asking for Blast clients and these models for sure would be usable. Of course the NVIDIA M series connection is a tough one as we see a lot of K series still but that is something to work with while talking to customers.

I tested them with CAD environments and tried some yourtube but need to make good video’s to post. the task worker model, 4448, was not happy with a full screen youtube movie but also not designed for that. The CAD environment or the other one, didn’t have an M series GPU so the hardware encoding wasn’t working. In the next blog or so I’ll find a M series environment to test this against and post results.

As soon as I find a bit of time I’ll write blog two to show the manager, right now time is a bit hard to find..

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